Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Vox reporter David Roberts thinks Conservatives can’t be persuaded to change their minds about climate change because we’ve been instructed to ignore climate facts by our “elites”.
Conservatives probably can’t be persuaded on climate change. So now what?
One more round of “messaging” won’t do it.
Updated by David Roberts Nov 10, 2017, 8:40am EST
When it comes to climate change, US conservatives inhabit a unique position, as part of the only major political party in the democratic world to reject the legitimacy of climate science and any domestic policy or international agreement meant to address it. Instead, the GOP is working actively to increase production and consumption of fossil fuels and to slow the transition to renewable energy.
How can conservatives be moved on climate change?
…
Core values, not science, are what drive conservative opposition, Dixon tells Grossman, and “free markets” are a core value for conservatives. They view climate policy as a threat to free markets, which is the real reason they reject climate science, so messaging should assuage those fears.
This is wrong.
…
Elites shape opinion, only elites can change it
Say we accept that the majority of hardcore conservatives have negative opinions on climate change, and they see those opinions as reflective of deep ideological values. What should be done about it?
There are two hidden premises that typically inform such discussions.
The first is that the only sensible response is to persuade all those conservatives. That’s why the focus inevitably turns to messaging and “framing,” the endless search for the right tone of voice, the right combination of arguments, the right mix of facts, stories, and imagery, to move the conservative mind. That’s what so many thousands of hours of effort have gone toward over the last decades.
But it’s backward, as Mullin says. Assessments of science follow political opinions, they do not precede them.
And how are political opinions shaped in the real world?
Well, as I’ve written many times, public opinion is not some great enduring mystery. There’s a decent consensus in the social sciences on what most moves public opinion: elite cues.
…
Conservatives think climate change is a communist plot because that’s what the right’s elites have told them.
…
Reality still matters. What we have in the US is not a “difference of opinion” about climate change, it’s conservatives being mistaken about some very basic facts. They’re mistaken because they’ve been lied to and misled by leaders and influencers within their own tribe.
That’s the situation. But it’s not stable. The weather is only getting worse, young people are only getting more engaged, and clean energy is only getting cheaper. Climate change and clean energy will be winning issues in the long term.
Why not claim and own them while it’s still possible? Then the GOP’s motto in the 2020s can be: “Hey, We Like Clean Energy Too!”
In reality, Democrats probably don’t have the wherewithal to mount that kind of fight. But that’s the only thing that has a chance of breaking the stalemate. The quest to persuade US conservatives on climate change has been extraordinarily long, vigorous, and well-documented. It has also been largely fruitless. Perhaps it’s time for a little agonism.
David has apparently moved on from advocating trying to buy off our leaders; he now he wants more “agonism”, more political aggression from his fellow travellers to try to take ownership of the climate issue.
I always find it entertaining to read green analysis of Conservative thinking. Such analysis tend to reveal far more about the way the green left thinks, than any deep insight into the thought processes of Conservatives.
We don’t follow our elites.
It is … politically incorrect … to question AGW. Speaking of being persuaded toward a “belief”. Enough said.
Whoo Boy! You have to love the chutzpah of ‘ivanskinsman’ offering emotional appeal weather anecdotes to sway conservatives and skeptics that climate change is not a communist plot! Hurricanes are normal weather events on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States of America, Comrade!
It’s just such a typical and hilarious climate alarmist ‘FAIL’!
The Vox piece vividly demonstrates what is wrong with warmunists (who are mostly also leftists). Assume what they learned from their elites (IPCC) is true and that skeptics are know nothings mislead by conservative elites. Many skeptics are not conservatives. What skeptics mainly have in common is an examination of the climate data and facts, which leads them to challenge the IPCC core: models inherently wrong because parameterization drags in attribution, no accelerating SLR, polar bears thriving because their biology was misrepresented, greening,…
VOX is pure psychological projection by warmunists, revealing their true Achilles heel—reality. Why warmunists won’t debate skeptics. They would lose on the facts. Why Koonin’s red team proposal will be so powerful. Why Mann is desparately avoiding Steyn discovery. Why Pruitt will be able to undo the endangerment finding.
A True Believer won’t be persuaded by mere facts.
You nailed it. To me it seems he is saying “the other side does not have the correct herd mentality! Hence they make very poor ‘useful idiots’. We must have their elites program them in the correct way like we have been programmed!”
I follow the Vox dude on Twitter, he’s not educated to understand 80% of the material he pontificates about.
“VOX is pure psychological projection by warmunists, revealing their true Achilles heel—reality.”
BUT – the left controls a disproportionate percentage of pop culture media, so they are able to continue the illusion that presents itself as reality.
Again, what i get out of this “Vox’s” rather repetitive lack of argument is that Vox cannot distinguish between weather, which is the short-term, and climate, which is the long term. I have doubts that Vox, and with whom he associates, will ever acknowledge those differences, or want to, for that matter.
The advantage to living in the USA is that we who disagree with the Voxian view of things don’t get punished for it. That seems to be more disturbing to him than anything else. It’s that old chestnut: “it IS if I say it IS’, and then you look out the window and it’s snowing with enough drifting snow to block the roads toward home.
Younger people have always fallen victim to the appeal of socialism. It is the equivalent of the “liberal is a conservative that hasn’t been mugged, yet”. The hard knocks of life, raising a family, and watching as your friends and family are motivated (or not) by the incentives in the economic system available to them.
The great fallacy of the socialist system is the distortion of the incentives in controlling economic decisions. Adam Smith understood those incentives, yet so many are still trying to improve on what cannot be improved on. And every system that tries to improve on it, must become a parasite to the system and an impediment to improving the human condition. Do the young people in your life a favor, and help them understand the work of Milton Friedman. It is guaranteed they will not learn about him in any public school. And any mention of his name is immediately shouted down on any campus in CA or NY. There is a good reason they have spent so much time and effort demonizing him.
That posting is great.
Was belly laughing by second paragraph.
Gang Green is impossible to parody.
Social Science Eh?
Strange how little is new with these re-inventors of the wheel.
Seeing as how their method of operation is lovingly detailed in our folk tales, such as Chicken Little, The Emperors New Clothes, The Golden Goose…
.
So people who think, attempt to apply the tools of reason,logic and past experience can be so easily “convinced” by our “elites”.
I suspect the author is too thick to understand a simple request for evidence.
Give me the evidence and I will take it from there.
Your elite esteemed opinion is sure to be an irritant and distraction until I find time to do so.
On CAGW the fad has peaked, conviction does not trump evidence, especially as money starved bureaucracies and their trained seals impose taxes on carbon dioxide.
This is where the tax paying citizen starts to pay attention.
And if past weather cycles are indication of future, the carpetbaggers timing could not be better.
Colder winters and a tax on the substance of life, may just convince the happy voter to educate our “elites”.
For any kleptocrat so arrogant as to tax life ,is too stupid to allow any authority, anywhere.
“Social Science ”
Cookin’ ‘n’ Cleanin’
“…..How can conservatives be moved on climate change?…..”.
How about requesting that PBS host a series of debates on the topic? Or how about accepting Heartland’s open invitation to present at its annual conference?
He may be so uninformed that he thinks that most leading skeptics deny that it’s getting warmer and that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That’s the strawman version of our position asserted or insinuated by warmists. It’s a mistaken version.
There are no greenhouse gases. Greenhouses work by preventing convection. Not trapping radiation.
As for whether it is getting warmer or not. I am not convinced the United States is as hot as it was in the 1930s and 1940s. Is it warmer than the 1960s and 1970s when the impending ice age was upon us? Sure, it is warmer than then. I also believe in the Medieval Warm Period and that is was warmer on average globally than today.
While you are of course exactly correct per physics, your observation will carry no weight in the political debate. Better to explain very simply the analogy (greenhouses prevent convective cooling, greenhouse gasses prevent radiative cooling),then move on to more substantive political points. And make them simple, short, irrefutable soundbites of the sort spinkled here since years:
Models irretrievably wrong (no tropical troposhere hotspot, pause) because unavoidable parameterization drags in attribution, observational ECS half of modeled, no accelerating SLR, polar bears thriving, greening,…
Practice killer sound bites, please. Itnis a political not a scientific debate at heart.
“Practice killer sound bites, please.”
– CO2 has been MUCH higher in the past and there was no “runaway effect”
– Planetary vegetation starts dying at about half of the current CO2 concentration
– [ADD MORE HERE]
“greenhouse gasses prevent radiative cooling”
Except that they don’t !!
AndyG55, H2O is a greenhouse gas.
…
It prevents radiative cooling.
…
If you doubt this, I suggest you spend the night in a desert.
…
Have you ever gone camping in a desert?
ghgs obviously do prevent
cooling, regardless
of your flippant (as always)
response
NO, the only reason H2O is up there, is because it has ALREADY DONE its cooling job.
Because it has huge latent heat capacity, it often overdoes the transfer of energy.
Do you really NOT understand this ??
Seems that crackpot
does not have
the slightest idea
how H2O operates
in our atmosphere.
Education
sadly lacking.
Crackerhead, the
way
you write your p
osts is ver
y annoying and I
wish you wou
ld give us all a frea
king break and cu
t it out.
The climate fanatics are ever nearer to finding an “elite opinion leader” who will propose a “final solution” to deal with us.
Looking at the “parade” we see ALL the trapping of modern FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENT society, that the greenie sheeple so love to lap up.
“To change everything, it takes everyone”
Count me out. Why would I want to change “everything”? These spoiled brats don’t know how good they have it compared to the history of the world. So don’t ask me to help change anything until you can show me that it will make things better rather than worse. That is hard enough to do for small changes. Change “everything,” and I can guarantee disaster.
we need energy — its source doesn’t matter.
unless you want to leave a vastly different
world for your grandchildren, you should care
too
I hope that my grandkids can enjoy a lush, balmy world of 1200 ppm CO2. But alas, that goal is unattainable, given frigid climate of the earth for the past 34 million years, and getting worse.
will any of your grandkids live
in the tropics? (3B/7.3B do.) The
Arctic? Near a coast? All are/will
be drastically affected by
AGW. Do you care?
“All are/will
be drastically affected by
AGW.”
You are
fantasising
again
ZERO PROOF
just mindless AGW
Propganda
ranting.
Your comments are
EMPTY and
BASELESS
“we need energy — its source doesn’t matter.”
And the cheapest, most reliable of sources are coal and gas.
With the extra HUGE benefit of adding much needed CO2 to the atmosphere.
Why do you want to DEPRIVE the future of plant life?
What sort EVIL, despicable sort of cretin are you ?
It is not the Conservatives who are driven to deny CAGW, it is the Left which is driven by its Elites to ignore rational investigation and Science, in order that they believe in the policies which bring great wealth to the Elite of the Left.
“’Conservatives’ probably can’t be persuaded on climate change. So now what?”
How about presenting some scientific evidence in favour of CAGW if you can find it? They could start by demonstrating some convincing scientific evidence that the climate is sensitive enough to the ‘Greenhouse’ effects of CO2 that it is a cause for any worry.
“They’re mistaken because they’ve been lied to and misled by leaders and influencers within their own tribe.”
I cannot see that this applies to the ‘Conservatives’ but I can certainly see that it applies to the Left in Spades. If ‘Conservatives” listened to their Elites like Leftists do, Trump would not have been elected.
“They could start by demonstrating some convincing scientific evidence that the climate is sensitive enough to the ‘Greenhouse’ effects of CO2 that it is a cause for any worry.”
did you read the 5AR by any
chance? Even just the SMP?
I did.
No such evidence there.
If you imagine such exist, please cite it here.
Thanks.
“SMP” ?
You mean the
POLITICALLY
CORRUPTED
FABRICATION.
That many
writers refuse
to have a bar of?
You obviously
haven’t read
it,
otherwise you
would know
that there is
NO SCIENCE
in it !
Actually I listen to my self appointed elites and usually reject their emotional twaddle for what it is.
Political correctness is their only defence, once you push past that they revert to shrieking and flinging filth.Opposing points of view are heresy.
To me, nobody special, this looks like excuse making, intended to disguise the low level of enthusiasm among people in general, as evidenced by the consistently low ranking of “climate change” indicated by surveys including long lists of potential concerns (and hence no significant campaigning on the “climate change” issue in the recent US election).
The illusion of some sort of widespread enthusiasm on a “side” (that is being counteracted by obstinate “conservatives” on the other side), is critical to maintain in the minds of those relatively few that have actually been convinced that we face a grave climate crisis, it seems to me, or there will be no cover at all for this (to my mind) “elitist” power-play . .
Freedom of speech is the prime target now, I believe, and that’s where the “agonism” comes in, for building the case/cover for internet censorship . .
Hmm…
Maybe they just can’t be persuaded to jump in bed with the political science promoting CAGW?
Who was it that said that CAGW was the opportunity for “first time in history” to change the world’s economics?
(Guess she likes poverty.)
“(Guess she likes poverty.)”
Just not for herself. !!
Just recycling hobgoblins – new hobgoblins, same solutions.
We don’t get fooled again:
Number of days since an error on Vox: 0
You know what you have to do to convince me? The math.
which math
do you
find suspect?
and why?
crackpot
EMPTY…
… still
Eric – your article offered
no evidence
at all to
counter DR’s claim.
What exactly would evidence that “Conservatives think climate change is a communist plot because that’s what the right’s elites have told them” is a bogus claim, look like, crackers? . . About the same as evidence to “counter” a claim that Vulcans convinced them it was a Romulan plot, eh, Sherlock? ; )
Total BS. Core values are a marketing spin label to come up with something in place of science and fact checking.
Do any of these people ever bother to actually read any recently published scientific research papers and discovered for themselves what is really going on ?
I got into a discussion with someone recently and after directing them to the NOAA website for data they attempted to explain that their data was not up to date on one topic and was unreliable on another. This was after directing me to a page designed for public consumption where I could locate the latest record high temperatures around the globe. At this point I realize that I was dealing with a brain dead zombie and ended the discussion.
What NOAA page are you referring to?
What is the going rate for w ft I ting this crap? There has to be a payment plan involved, either per story or per zinger.
I’m not a conservative. If anything I’m socialist but live in the real world, not the rainbows and unicorns world of the greens. I reject the climate change politicised faux science because I am a lover of real science.
what do you
calculate
manmade co2’s
effect to be, according
to your ‘real science’?
real science (math + chaos theory) says this just cannot be calculated. period.
Arrhenius had a solid excuse: he couldn’t know about chaos. So he quietly use the good old linear mathematical tool, where he shouldn’t (a non linear, lag and hystereris plagued, system).
You don’t have this excuse, and keep asking this question that just cannot be answered. You are a pain.
CO2 effect on our
convectively controlled
atmosphere.
never measured..
almost certainly
un-measureable
ZERO to NONE
No mechanism
for CO2 warming
in a convective
atmosphere
“Vox reporter David Roberts thinks Conservatives can’t be persuaded to change their minds about climate change because we’ve been instructed to ignore climate facts by our “elites”….
Vox reporter David Roberts thinks LEFTISTS can’t be persuaded to change their minds about climate change because we’ve been instructed to ignore climate facts by our “elites”.
OK… Now it’s fixed…
what
facts
>?
well, facts like:
* climate is ill known, data is still scare and untrustworty,
* climate is a chotic system, and as such intractable even if we add ALL the data (position and state of each atom on Earth)
* nothing hint at any change in frenquency and strength of extrem weather events since the 70s
* If the theory were true, Paris agreement would delay 1 year in a century the onset of the promised doom (2101 instead of 2100).
* climate elites plainly stated that climate was just a good crisis to advance their world government, anticapitalist, agenda
Cracker-san:
1) FACT: The Little Ice Age (1280~1850) was the coldest event since the Holocene Maximum 8,000 years ago. The 0.85C of natural warming recovery we’ve enjoyed since 1850 was largely from LIA recovery, not CO2.
2) FACT: The strongest 63-yr string of solar cycles in 11,400 years occurred from 1933~1996, which contributed to 20th century warming, not CO2…
3) FACT: When the strong solar cycles ended in 1996, so did the global warming trend (excluding 2016 Super El Niño spike):
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6-land/from:1996.6/to:2015.7/plot/uah6/from:1996.6/to:2015.7/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.6/to:2015.7/normalise/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.6/to:2015.7/normalise
4) FACT: CO2 forcing is logarithmic so each incremental increase has less and less of a warming effect… CAGW hilariously assumed exponential CO2 warming, which is impossible…
5) FACT: doubling CO2 will increase crop yields 33%, which will help feed billions of people.
6) FACT: For decades, NASA reported Antarctic Land Ice was decreasing at 130 Billion/yr… On October 31st 2015, they finally admitted it was INCREASING at 100 billion tons/yr since1992….
7) FACT: Most of the warming from 1978 to 1996 was caused by the 30-yr PDO warm cycle. From 2022, both the PDO and AMO will be in their 30-yr cool cycles, which always leads to global cooling.
8) FACT: From 2021, the weakest solar cycle since 1790 will start leading to global cooling.
9) FACT: from 2032, the weakest solar cycle since 1645 will start, marking the beginning of another Grand Solar Minimum event, which will further cool the planet for 50~75 years.
10) FACT: Sea Level Rise has been stuck at 7 inches per CENTURY since 1800… This century’s Sea Level Rise is stuck at the same rate..
11) IPCC’s 2013 AR5 Report admits no increasing trends of severe weather for the past 70~100 years: typhoons, cyclones, hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, thunderstorms, tropical storms, subtropical storms, hail, etc…
I could go on and on and on, but what’s the use… CAGW is dead.
sorry, the sun has
a very small
impact on climate,
only about 0.1 C per
change in W/m2. ghgs
easily swamp this.
Cracker-san:
Obviously, the sun determines climate…PERIOD!…
TSI doesn’t change much, but sunspot activity does.
The Little Ice Age was caused by 4 Grand Solar Minimum events: Wolf, Sporer, Maunder and Dalton… We’re in the process of entering another one that’ll cool the climate for the next 80 years from the Svensmark Effect..
CAGW is so busted..
crackers.
IGNORANT
of UV changes
Solar wind change
Magnetic changes.
I wonder…
is there anything
crackers is NOT
ignorant about.
Solar energy low
now.
Cooling soon
to begin.
Anger55 – i’m sorry,
but i find your comments
invariably unserious and, well,
to be honest, childish,
without any arguments,
and i’m sure
i’m not the only
one here who
thinks so.
sorry, mate.
What..
Because I try
to communicate
to you at your
very low level.
Your opinion
is meaningless
to me.
You produce
NOTHING but
empty inco-
herent nonsense
Vox has all the gravitas of My Weekly Reader.
If those who profess to care about climate change would just lead by example instead of demanding that we all jump off the cliff together, then their ridiculous targets could be easily met. But no, they keep jet setting around the world, using their electricity-hog toys, and warming/heating their oversized dwellings, while telling everyone else how wonderful of a person they are. If you think it’s a planetary emergency, do something about it besides rioting and demanding stuff from other people. Otherwise you’re a fraud.
I lead by example…. but individual
efforts will not and cannot solve this
problem. it requires changes on the
institutional level
the only thing you do is use short lines…
…… of what, I’m not sure. !!
You are using a computer.. Made from petroleum based materials, manufactured using fossil fuel energy
I bet you live in a house, most of which is made using fossil fuels of some sort.
Do you have solar panels, paid for by taxpayers??
Aluminum, solar cells copper… all use HUGE qualities of fossil fuels.
You are FOOLING YOURSELF.
And yes, you do need to get moved to a different institution.
The one you are at isn’t helping you at all.
THE biggest failure of ‘climate science™’ is the failure of so many advocates of this theory or that, to realize that to say “We just don’t know…” is a valid scientific statement.
“We just don’t know…” should be the spur to investigate further, the impetus to research better, and as a shield to protect us from mistakenly falling into the trap of saying “the science is settled”. Science is never settled!
The fact that climate models have failed on so many levels should be an indication to all ‘climate scientists™’ that this is the current situation (that we just don’t know). The fact that so many do not consider this, or that what we think we know can be wrong, is a grave failure of science. Few seem to understand that mere theory can not override observations. The willful lack of scientific skepticism in the more vocal elements of this community will probably ensure that they and their efforts will ultimately be a failure.
And the other question arises “But how much is this to cost all the rest of us?”.
Because climate is now all about politics and virtue signaling, the cost are surely to be immense, all the extra taxes on electricity, fuels, and motive costs soon ratchet-up the basic cost of living. Extra costs that ultimately will not achieve there stated aim.
As I look to the future, what I can definitely say is I don’t know where all this ‘AGW/Climate Change’ nonsense will land us but in all likelihood it will not be so good. Good luck to the next generation, having to find a way to maintain all the dross this generation has left you.
This is a mystery to me. How is “elite” defined and measured?